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Ohio Gadfly Daily

Fordham’s Chad Aldis has been having a sort of radio revival this week, returning to a number of radio stations to talk Common Core for the second or even third time. Sadly, the questions haven’t really changed, and even discussion of the status of the latest legislative assault on Common Core in Ohio isn’t prevalent. Odd. First up today, WSPD-AM in Toledo, where Chad answered questions from host Scott Sands and callers for nearly half an hour. Next up, WFIN-AM in Findlay, where it was just Chad and host Chris Oaks. Chad’s part starts at about the 2:45 mark.

Chad’s testimony on HB228 from last week, urging the legislature to slow down on their efforts to place an arbitrary time limit on the amount of state testing, is referenced in this piece from Marion published yesterday. A bit old news, but we’ll take it. (Marion Online)

Editors in Cleveland opine on NCTQ’s latest report, evaluating a number of teacher training programs across the country. Ohio universities whose programs were graded low are bothered by several points. The PD’s editors are not unsympathetic, but they fall upon the side of rigor and anything that legitimately detracts from rigor should be investigated and improved.

Fordham’s Chad Aldis had a whole 30 minutes on the air on WHBC radio in Canton on Saturday morning, talking about the Common Core with host Joe Palmisano. Link is here. Common Core discussion begins at about the 38 minute mark, but stick around for the caller Q&A afterward too. Fascinating discussion. (WHBC-AM, Canton)

Journalists retrenched after the internet blowup over Ohio’s “5 of 8” rule last week, and spent the weekend digging in and trying to understand what the rule means in its present form, how it manifests itself in local practice,

In other sausage-making news, HB 343 was stuffed like a lame-duck-flavored kielbasa in the House Education Committee yesterday. The possible remove of teacher pay schedule requirements from state law is getting the most play (check out the Plain Dealer’s coverage here – over 300 comments already! – and the Dispatch’s coverage here for a taste of that smoky link). The debate on this provision of the bill sounds eerily similar to that of the so-called “5 of 8 rule” from the state board of ed earlier in the week. But seriously, there was a lot more crammed into this bill than just pay schedules. That includes provisions on zero tolerance, safe harbor, third grade reading cut scores, and state report card changes. You can see a nice summary of everything in Gongwer Ohio.

Editor’s Note: On Thursday, November 13, Chad Aldis testified before the Ohio House Education Committee on thesubstitute bill for House Bill 228. His comments focused on a small but substantial change that would limit the length of a state assessment, even if administered in several parts at multiple times during the school year, to four hours. A portion of his testimony is below.

I would like to commend the legislature on its decision to examine the issue of over-testing. In recent months, concerns over the amount of classroom time allocated to standardized testing have risen with a fervor and urgency that is understandable. Testing impacts thousands of students, parents, and educators across our state. As a parent of children in a traditional public school, I understand the concerns surrounding testing. I am equally concerned though that in our rush to find a solution we could potentially swing the pendulum too far the other way.

I oppose placing a testing time limit in statute for three reasons.

First, the provision limiting testing hours on the state assessment is a quick fix that may not solve the issue of over-testing. Under HB 487, enacted in June, the state superintendent is required to study the state’s assessments and report back to you by January 15. This report should give you valuable information that can be utilized in making decisions about testing. I urge you to be patient and wait for...

More radio for the nostalgia buffs out there. And more Common Core for the more modern reader. All Sides with Ann Fisher gave a full hour to Common Core yesterday, starting with Rep. Huffman and discussion of the latest legislative assault on Common Core in Ohio. The rest of the time included enlightening discussion of math instruction in the Common Core era as well as some in-the-trenches talk about finding the best curriculum materials. Interesting listen. (WOSU-FM, Columbus)

Editors in Toledo opined on their expecations of the Ohio General Assembly during its lame duck session, now underway. Specifically, they advised legislators to avoid taking up the Common Core repeal bill in favor of more pressing and important issues. Probably something to do with ensuring safe drinking water for large cities on large lakes in the northern part of the state. (Toledo Blade)

Editors in Cleveland opined in support of Ohio’s so-called “5 of 8” rule which prescribes certain staffing ratios for “support personnel” in schools and which has been recommended for removal by the state board of education. Perhaps you’ve heard about this issue? Maybe via social media? (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

I know loyal Gadfly Bites subscribers have heard all about the ongoing drama in the Monroe school district in regards to their long-mothballed old high school. Latest news: Monroe City Council

Editors in Columbus got a two-fer in their opining today: objecting to both the pending bill to limit standardized testing time (“reckless”) and to repeal Ohio’s New Education Standards (“political posturing”). Fordham is namechecked in terms of the latter item. (Columbus Dispatch)

More drama at the state board of education meeting yesterday, including unscheduled testimony, points of order, and a temporary walkout by four board members. Thanks again, carpetbaggers. Check out coverage in the Dayton Daily News, the Columbus Dispatch, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

A firestorm has erupted in Ohio on a proposed state board of education administrative rule. The headline on Diane Ravitch’s blog cries, “Ohio Alert! State Board of Education Will Vote on Whether to Eliminate Arts, P.E., Librarians, Nurses at Elementary Schools.” The headline, though sensational, is flat wrong and misleading.

Let’s set the facts straight. The Ohio state board of education is proposing to eliminate the staffing-ratio mandates for non-classroom-teaching staff. (These include counselors, gym teachers, elementary art and music teachers, etc.) The board, then, is not pronouncing a death-sentence on music or art. Local schools may hire as many non-classroom-teaching personnel as they see fit. Rather the proposal aims to give districts more flexibility over how they staff their schools.

A minimum of five full-time equivalent educational service personnel shall be employed district-wide for each one thousand students in the regular student population as defined in section 3317.023of the Revised Code. Educational service personnel shall be assigned to at least five of the eight following areas: counselor, library media specialist, school nurse, visiting teacher, social worker and elementary art, music and physical education.

In other words, the current regulation requires districts to hire at least five employees per 1,000 students in the eight areas defined under the rule. But this is a rigid human-resource policy, leaving schools with less flexibility in how it delivers educational services. For instance, what if a district...

I’m not sure if reporter Doug Livingston just ran out of words or simply ran out of will, but today’s ABJ story on high performing charter schools is lukewarm at best. After publishing over 4100 words over five hit pieces yesterday, the ABJ manages not quite 1100 words on Akron’s SCOPE Academy, which despite the reporter’s efforts, sounds pretty awesome in structure, support, and outcomes. The story doesn’t end but just kind of peters out in the midst of discussion of Cleveland’s Breakthrough Schools. I look forward to the Beacon Journal’s efforts to ferret out some high-quality district schools to talk about in a follow up piece. (Akron Beacon Journal)

To say that the outside agitators who blew up Twitter over the weekend failed to understand what the State Board of Education’s Operating Standards Committee was voting on yesterday is an understatement. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and a vote was taken after a year-long process – required by state law – to review Ohio’s operating standards. Numerous steps remain in the process. But thanks, internet carpetbaggers, for your concern for us rubes here in Ohio. We’re touched. You can check out coverage of the committee’s vote and commentary from board members here. (Gongwer Ohio) You can check out a bit more “sensational” coverage of the issue and the misplaced uproar here. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

The Akron Beacon Journal has started a series about charter schools (surprise, surprise), with a set of five stories over the weekend and more to come through the week. Here’s the first batch:

1. First up, a slanted and simplistic view of authorizer oversight issues in Ohio. The headline mentions low performance among charters but that is a mere sentence (referring to a previous ABJ hit piece) in this article. I think all you need to know is conveyed in the sentence which ends, “…placing control in the hands of ‘sponsors,’ or ‘authorizers,’ who generally were school-choice advocates.” This tiny piece of nothing fact - groups who sponsor charters are school-choice supporters – is presented as a stinging gotcha. Fordham is namechecked as one of the groups (mostly supporters of charter schools, dun dun DUN!) working with Sen. Lehner on comprehensive charter school reform. (Akron Beacon Journal)

Earlier this year, the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) published its annual report on charter quality. Their analysis makes an interesting observation: The school-quality distribution across California charters forms a “u-shaped curve.” In contrast, however, when I look at Ohio charters, a different quality distribution emerges. Instead of u-shaped curve, Ohio has a rectangular-looking distribution. So while California charters are more likely to be very high or low quality, Ohio charters seem to be more evenly distributed across the quality spectrum. The shape of the quality “curves” suggests different policy strategies might be needed to lift overall sector quality in Ohio compared to California.

Let us first look at the school-quality data. Chart 1 displays the distribution of charter quality in California, as reported by CCSA. Its analysis uses school-level test and demographic data, along with statistical methods, to calculate a school-quality measure (“predicted API”). The analysis is somewhat akin to the “value-added” analysis used in Ohio, though also cruder since it employs school not student-level data.[1] The analysis divides the quality spectrum into twenty equal intervals and reports the percentage of charters falling into each interval.

When CCSA mapped the quality of California charters, it found a disproportionate number of schools at tails of the distribution. For example, 15 percent of charters fell within the top-five percent of all public schools statewide along its quality measure. At the other end, 9 percent of charters were rated in the bottom-five percent of all schools. (If...